


Bittersweet

by dogramagra



Category: That was Then This is Now - S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders - All Media Types, The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Gen, Nonbinary M&M Carlson, Period Typical Attitudes, Trans Bob Sheldon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23520901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogramagra/pseuds/dogramagra
Summary: Baby Freak reminds Randy of someone.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> this is for the anon that wanted a trans bob fic!!
> 
> i still used they/them for m&m and he/him for bob before randy knew they were trans, it’s from his pov
> 
> (i used a snippet from my other fic where m&m is nb in this so if you recognize that, that’s why)

Randy had met a lot of people since he got into the hippie movement, but M&M was the youngest by far. He figured they probably couldn’t be any older than fourteen, and judging by the nickname Baby Freak, he was right. Baby Freak was as happy as could be, full of love, and trust, and optimism. That scared Randy. He knew everyone around here wasn’t as nice as they made out to be, and that kid believing everything they said without any questions wasn’t going to end well. 

He tried to tell them, more than a couple of times. They never would listen, though. Baby Freak was always lost in their own world, a world with nothing but love, and Randy was a hippie, he wished the world was that way, but he knew that it just wasn’t. He tried to pretend that he didn’t, but he knew that firsthand. He liked the kid a lot, and he wanted to protect them, even if Baby Freak could barely remember him each time they met. Randy really couldn’t blame them for that. They were probably meeting a lot of new people that looked just about the same, since most hippies didn’t exactly dress all that different. The kid was high all the time, too. 

That’s another thing that scared Randy. Baby Freak’s travel agent wasn’t exactly the best around, but they had only been there for a couple weeks, and they didn’t know that. Randy tried to tell them, but Baby Freak would just look at him like he was crazy. He told them to ask what they were taking before they took it, and he could tell it didn’t get through, so he kept saying it. Still, it was obvious to anyone who talked to them for more than five minutes that that kid wouldn’t believe anybody was bad until they saw it for themself. It was both good and bad to be that innocent. 

He was with Baby Freak one day while they were high, and they were just sitting there for a while, silent. That was odd for the kid, and Randy was starting to get worried, but it seemed like they were thinking about something. They kept opening their mouth like they had something to say, then closing it again like they decided against it. They looked real funny, and Randy just watched for a while until they finally said something. 

“Do you ever feel like you’re not a boy? I’m not a boy, I don’t think,” they said. 

That caught Randy off guard, he’ll admit, but he didn’t show it. He might have just chalked it up to the kid being high if it hadn’t reminded him of someone who said something similar to him a few years back. He might have just told them they were crazy, or that something like that was stupid, but he didn’t. He knew better. 

“Can’t say I do,” he said. “But sure thing, Baby Freak. If you’re not a boy, then you’re just not, I guess.” 

Baby Freak didn’t say anything after that, and neither did Randy. He guessed that neither of them could really think of anything to say. There wasn’t much you could say to something like that, anyway. It was what it was. If Baby Freak wasn’t a boy, then they weren’t a boy, and Randy wasn’t exactly sure if that meant they were a girl or not, but he wanted to help them out. It seemed like they were struggling, and Randy could almost understand it now, because he saw something like that happen before, only a little different. 

He started to think of Bob, a time when they were kids, maybe ten or so. They were lying in the dirt in Bob’s backyard, and they were both covered in it, too. It was all over Randy’s face and in Bob’s hair and on both of their nice clothes. Randy’s parents would get mad at him for that, but he was a kid, and he didn’t care. Sometimes he wished he had Bob’s parents, because they never got onto him for anything. His mother would put on this real nice voice and say, “Sweetie, you need to stop being such a tomboy, let’s get you cleaned up.” Randy thought that they might have been that way because Bob was a girl. 

Bob wasn’t a girl, and that wasn’t the reason, but Randy didn’t know that yet.

They were both breathing hard. They had been wrestling for the past couple of minutes, but neither one of them could win, and they got tired. They liked to play-fight, Bob especially, and Randy didn’t have a problem with it. He thought it was fun too, even if his parents got mad at him sometimes for “hitting a girl.” Everyone already thought it was weird that Randy and Bob hung out so much, because apparently little boys are supposed to play with other little boys or something like that. Everyone always told them they needed to stop roughhousing, and they would get mad at Randy for it.

They just sat there for a while, looking up at the sky. It was real pretty, Randy thought. The sun was setting, turning the sky all kinds of reds, and oranges, and pinks. He was always amazed by stuff like that, even though Bob didn’t much care for it. Randy looked over at him, and he didn’t seem like he saw the sky, really, he was just staring, like he was deep in thought. Randy kept his eyes on him, waiting for him to say something. He did, eventually. 

“I hate being a girl,” Bob said. “It just don’t feel right.” 

At the time, Randy thought he just meant that he didn’t like how everyone treated him like he wasn’t as tough as the boys were, as tough as Randy was, because he already knew Bob didn’t like that. He didn’t think too hard about what he said before replying. He was a kid, and he didn’t know any better. 

“Yeah, I kind of get what you mean, I guess. With how they all treat you and everything.” 

Bob got a little angry at that, but it wasn’t towards Randy, and Randy could tell. He just looked frustrated. “No, not like that, I mean, I don’t feel right. Even if they didn’t treat me like that, I just don’t feel right.” 

Now, that was confusing, and it would take a few years before Randy finally understood what he meant. “Oh, well, I don’t know about that. Sorry.”

“Of course you don’t,” Bob said, and he got up. “Let’s go inside, Mama is going to want to clean us up and everything before your parents get here.”

So they went inside, and Bob’s mom did just that. 

That wasn’t the last time Bob said something like that either. The second time, they were twelve, and they were sitting on Randy’s bed. They were just talking like they usually do, about whatever, but Bob was messing with his hair a whole lot. It wasn’t a nervous habit or anything, like twisting his rings or popping his knuckles, so Randy was starting to wonder what was going on. He was picking at pieces of it and looking at it like he was going to make a decision. Randy hated when he got that look on his face. Bob’s decisions weren’t always the best, even if a twelve year old doesn’t have too many drastic decisions to make. 

Randy doesn’t remember what he was talking about, but Bob cut him off. “Come here,” he said, getting up to get something out of his bag. He unzipped it and pulled out a pair of kitchen scissors. 

“Come here,” he said, again, because Randy didn’t listen the first time. “Come on, come with me to the bathroom.” 

“Are those scissors? What’re you gonna do with those?” Randy asked, following Bob to the bathroom because he had already started walking. He had a pretty good idea of what Bob was doing, though. He really didn’t want him to cut his hair off, especially at his house, because he didn’t want to get into trouble. Bob never worried about anything like that, though, he never cared, and Randy knew he couldn’t stop him if that was what he wanted to do. 

“I’m cutting my hair off,” Bob said, and then Randy started to get a little frantic. He really wished Bob would think about things before he did them.

“Why? C’mon, don’t do that, not here at least, your mom is gonna think I’m a bad influence or something! She might not let you come over anymore, c’mon, don’t do that.” Randy was trying his best to convince Bob not to, but he could tell it wasn’t working. Bob had this reckless grin on his face, one Randy had never seen before, but one he would become very well acquainted with a few years down the line. A grin that he missed, now, even if he hated what happened every time he saw it. 

“Mama said girls don’t have short hair,” Randy said, and he started cutting. Dark curls fell all over Randy’s bathroom floor, and he knew it was going to be a pain to clean up. He was confused, too. 

“What’s that got to do with anything? What, are you trying to prove her wrong? You don’t have to cut yours for that, I’ve seen girls with short hair,” Randy said. He was the most rational out of the two of them, but he didn’t realize that Bob wasn’t looking for logic at the moment. Most of his hair was off already, so it’s not like it would have done much if he was.

“No! Look, Randy, you can’t tell anyone this, alright? Not yet,” Bob said. Randy nodded, so he continued. “I’m not a girl. I’m a boy, and that’s why I feel wrong. I figured it out.” 

Randy was even more confused now, but he just nodded and said, “Sure. I mean, sure, but I don’t get it. How does that work?” 

“What do you mean, how does that work? I don’t know, I’m just not a girl. I’m not, and I don’t want to be called a girl anymore, or girl names, or treated like a girl, or whatever else. I’m just not.” His hair was cut as short as Randy’s now, and the floor was a mess. “I want to be called Bob. It’s short for Robert.” 

“Okay,” Randy said. He didn’t know what else to say. There were a lot of times that Randy wasn’t sure what to say, because all he could do was take it in. It was a lot, and he didn’t get it at all, but Bob was his best friend. If he wanted to be a boy, then that was fine with Randy. He just wasn’t sure how it would go over with the parents. They did get mad about Bob’s hair, but they didn’t blame it on Randy like he thought they would. They blamed it on themselves, and that’s something Randy will never understand. 

Two years later, when they were fourteen, Bob finally told his parents. It was odd, what happened that year. Nothing like what Randy thought would happen did. Bob’s parents did everything they could to make him happy, to make him look like how boys were supposed to look. They didn’t really accept him, not really, but Bob wouldn’t quit about it. Bob told Randy something about having to guilt trip them a little bit, and Randy believed it. So, his parents did everything they could to cover up that Bob wasn’t born a boy.

It wasn’t hard, really. Bob’s family had the most money out of anyone Randy had ever met, and that’s saying a lot. They paid for Bob to get hormones that year, and they got him something that made it look like his chest was flat, but Randy didn’t really know what that was. He didn’t know much about anything Bob told him about, but Bob seemed about it, so Randy was too. He was happy for him, really. And if anyone wasn’t happy about Bob’s transition, his family would pay them to shut up about it. Money did a lot around here. None of the kids at school ever said anything, either, because they were all scared of his parents, in some way. 

When they were sixteen, Bob got some kind of surgery, and his chest was flat, without having to wear something over it. He was so happy about it that he would smile every time he looked in the mirror. It was a real smile, a happy one, one that Randy didn’t get to see too often. It was kind of funny, the way Bob would stand in front of the mirror. He acted like he was in a photoshoot or something, and sometimes Randy couldn’t help but laugh at him. 

“Man, you just don’t know what this feels like,” Bob would say. “Shit feels so good, you don’t even know.” 

“Yeah, I guess I don’t,” Randy would say back. He didn’t know. 

There were the good moments, like those, but there were the bad ones too. That same year, Bob started drinking a whole lot more than he used too. Sure, they got drunk sometimes, they had a little fun, they got into a fight or two, they went around looking for trouble, the like. Bob just took things too far. Randy knew he was reckless, and he was impulsive, and he just didn’t care about any kind of consequences. His parents got him out of all the trouble he got in, and they were never mad at him for it. 

He did it because he felt like he needed to prove how much of a man he was. He got into fights with everyone just because he knew he could win, he smarted off to anyone and everyone, he said nasty to things to all the girls. Randy watched him, and he could see Bob destroying himself day by day. He was trying so hard to be a man that he didn’t take time to realize he was tearing his life apart. He was still a good buddy, and he never fought with Randy, but sometimes those dark eyes would get a look in them Randy didn’t recognize. That was Bob when he was drunk, and that Bob wasn’t his friend. 

There never were any consequences for any of it, not until the day Bob died. The day he really took it too far, too far for even his parents to handle, and he got what was coming to him. It had been a year since then, and Randy was nineteen, but he still thought about it everyday. He knew something like that was going to happen someday, but it was so much sooner than he thought. Bob didn’t even get to graduate high school. But then again, neither did Dallas Winston, and neither did Johnny Cade. Randy guessed that was just how the world works. 

He didn’t want to see another kid turn out that way, so he decided he was going to try and help out Baby Freak. It wasn’t easy, considering he hardly saw the kid and they never would listen to anything he had to say, but he tried. After a while, Baby Freak started to open up to him. That first time they told Randy they didn’t feel like a boy, they were a little scared, but they weren’t like that now. They would sit and tell Randy about how they wanted to wear dresses, paint their nails, and grow their out as long as their sister’s.

Randy could tell that they never had anyone to talk to about it before. Baby Freak told him about their dad, and how he always criticized them for their hair and the way they dressed. Randy felt bad for them, and he wished he could do something, but he knew he couldn’t. Not everyone had parents like Bob’s. Baby Freak’s family wasn’t rich or anything, either, so it’s not like they could do for them what Bob’s parents did for him. 

And Baby Freak wasn’t exactly binary. Randy didn’t really know how to handle that, but he listened to them when they talked about it. That was about all he could do, really, in that regard. What he was really worried about was keeping the kid safe. Baby Freak had told him he likes getting high, because then they don’t have to think as much. They don’t have to think about being home, or their dad, or how they don’t feel exactly right. Randy was still scared for the day they took something and didn't ask what it was. 

Sometimes, they would get a hold of someone’s skirt, or dress, or makeup, or nail polish, or whatever else and parade around wearing it. Randy always watched them real close when they did that. Even hippies could be weird about that kind of thing. He made sure to tell them that they couldn’t do things like that in public, that they could get hurt. Bob never did, but Randy saw the way people looked at him. Baby Freak didn’t have any kind of protection from those people. 

Randy didn’t end up being able to help the kid. He wasn’t there the day M&M overdosed, but he heard about it. He only saw them once after that. All their hair was gone. Randy almost said something to them, but he figured he shouldn’t. They were still alive, and that was enough for him. They probably didn’t want to be reminded of what happened anyway. Still, Randy wondered if they had the same love, and trust, and optimism as they did before. He hoped they held on to some of it.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! hope you liked it <3 kudos and comments are very much appreciated!!
> 
> also i’m nonbinary and not transmasc so if i wrote bob in a way that comes off wrong or offensive or anything like that please tell me!! and i don’t know much about trans kids in the sixties but i think rich people can do anything if they pay enough money so


End file.
